Negotiating Identity and Access 3

Immigrant and Refugee Experiences in Higher Education: Negotiating Identity and Access into a Post Secondary Learning Community Kaleigh Quinn

ABSTRACT: Drawing from the experiences of three newcomers to Canada who are currently attending a Canadian university, this paper explores the idea of a university as a community of learning, both restrictive and inclusive in its policies and practices. The de- velopment of a suitable identity, the establishment of social capital, and the formation of self-efficacy is vital to social integration, and is examined further in the context of the immigrant and refugee experience. A discussion of the challenges that immigrant and refugee students face in gaining membership and integrating into this community follows, relating to both external, structural barriers, and internal, perceived barriers. Finally, implications for both students and institutions are examined.

KEYWORDS: Immigrant, refugee, higher education, identity, self-efficacy, integration

North American universities are experiencing increasing rates of attendance by immigrant and refugee students (Smedley, 1993; Gray & Vernez, 1996; Bril- liant, 2000). These newcomers struggle to integrate into the Canadian community, and are often faced with credential recognition issues complicating their en- try into the Canadian labour market; as a result, access to higher education often represents a “primary means of entering Canadian society and eventually its economy” (Kilbride & D’Arcangelo, 2002, p.11). Although admittance into a 2 QUINN postsecondary institution may facilitate integration into the Canadian community, university often presents an enormous integrative challenge in itself. On a fundamental level, these problems result primarily from language barriers and the acculturation process; however, ultimately complications in the process of integration is related not to the initial admittance into the institution, but in ac- cessing membership to the perceived learning community itself. Access to this membership is facilitated by one’s own linguistic, academic, and social self-efficacy, and is affected by external and internal factors that play a role in validating a newcomer’s presence in a learning community. These issues shape an individual’s perception of himself or herself as worthy of membership to the community, and ultimately facilitate or inhibit integration.

This paper begins by discussing the methods through which individuals can gain access and integrate socially into a community, such as social capital and self- efficacy. A discussion of challenges encountered in integrating into this community follows, relating specifically to the internal, perceived barriers that may affect this process. The paper then navigates through the issues of self-efficacy, focusing on the relationship between the linguistic self-efficacy of English as an additional language (EAL) speaking immigrants and refugees and their social self efficacy as they affect integration into the institution of higher learning. The paper draws on the experiences of three newcomers to Canada who are currently attending a Canadian university.

Methodology

The objectives of this research are primarily to record the perceptions and experiences of newcomers attending postsecondary academic institutions, to describe students’ understandings of their self-efficacy in language, academic, and social tasks, and to analyze the implications of these factors in students’ academic experiences, and to collect and synthesize scholarly material on the self-efficacy of newcomers and minorities in Canada, and their adjustment within postsecondary academic institutions.

The major questions guiding my research, and the content of the retrospective, in-depth interviews, revolved around research participants’ perceptions of their social and academic self-efficacy. Specifically, I explored their perspective with regard to the following questions: Negotiating Identity and Access 3 How do immigrant and refugee students understand and navigate their sense of identity and belonging within postsecondary academic institutions in their host country?

How do immigrant and refugee students within postsecondary academic institutions reconcile their own understanding of their ascribed status and achieved status in Canada as compared to in their home country?

How does an immigrant and/or refugee’s self-efficacy in his or her language skills, academic skills, and social skills affect his/her understanding of their sense of identity and belonging?

Findings The three participants in this research study were relatively recent newcomers who came from a developing nation, lived in the Winnipeg area, attended a postsecondary institution, and sought support through the immigrant support re- source center affiliated with one of the institutions. Although each was eager to pursue his/her studies, the participants recognized significant external and internal barriers that were preventing their full participation and integration into the institution, and spoke to their hope that change would be effected to alter this frustrating and unjust reality.

The interviews revealed common challenges experienced by the participants affecting successful integration into the institution related to both external and internal factors. External issues affecting the success and ease with which participants indicated that they were able to integrate into the postsecondary environment resulted from systemic concerns within the institution: namely, credential recognition (or a lack of) and the unfamiliarity of participants with the system itself. Internal issues affecting integration into the institution resulted primarily from linguistic self-efficacy. Furthermore, confidence in language skills had implications in academic self-efficacy and social self-efficacy, the latter or which will be the focus in this abridged version of the findings. All of these factors ultimately affected the integrative success as articulated by participants within the institution. Regardless of self-efficacy and positive or negative constructions of the implications of the above factors, all participants were persistent and resilient in their studies. 4 QUINN Effects of Linguistic and Social Self-Efficacy on Integration Students’ self-confidence in their linguistic skills played a significant role in the integrative process. Students’ own understanding of their linguistic confidence was often shaped by their formal achievement in tests, but their self-confidence, rather than their actual test scores, was both a much more limiting and enabling factor on their success. Based on participants’ interview responses, linguistic self-efficacy strongly affected students’ social self-efficacy, reflected in confidence and desire to communicate, work with, and integrate with peers. In turn, this affected their integration into the academic institution.

Linguistic skills and self-efficacy affected participants’ perception of their social abilities in an English environment. Participants’ reflections on their confidence in social situations and their perception of into which communities they saw themselves as belonging shaped their overall integration into the academic environment. Identity and Social Identification Social interaction builds social capital, which can be leveraged to gain access into a desired community. The identity that students construct for themselves can facilitate entrance into the learning community, or can in fact disadvantage students by limiting their participation in university, if they do not see themselves as a legitimate student. Christie, Munro, and Wager (2005) investigated students who, for various reasons, viewed themselves as merely ‘day students’; this conceptualization of their identity excluded them from full participation in university, and thus from integrating successfully into the learning community.

How students conceptualize their identity, and understand the limits of their language skills also impacts who they identify with, and thus who they feel capable of approaching for social contact. Cervatiuc (2009) states, “immigrants do not have the luxury to interact with whom they choose, as their opportunities to practice English are generally limited and socially structured for them. Under these circumstances, many immigrants become marginalized, introverted, and sensitive to rejection” (p. 255). As a result, those who they may choose to integrate with socially are also newcomers; there is increased ability of identification between more similar individuals. Unfortunately, however, social interaction with other newcomers creates less social capital than interactions with full members of the learning community, therefore reducing the speed at which integration can occur. Negotiating Identity and Access 5 Accordingly, each participant described that they feel more comfortable interacting socially with other immigrants rather than native-born Canadians, because of their ability to understand he experiences, feelings, and potential linguistic defi- ciencies of one another; there is no need to apologize for misinterpretation or slow communication.

Judoney: My integration was much more with other immigrants in Canada…We could understand each other more easily than other people… in terms of experience of our life, of what we are living. … For me [communication occurs] much more [with those] willing to understand that you are different and that you won’t get everything, rather than the one who would get mad because you didn’t get it.

Camilla, however, described that she is comforted by an accent in addition to knowledge that someone is an immigrant, as it implies that communication will be much easier. “In that class, if they have immigrant, newcomer, whatever, I will talk. Not someone who is fluent but someone who has an accent, I am usu- ally attract to them, and make it easier. Some of them, like Africans, it’s even easier…. I feel I’m belong to them, and I can easily understand them. Most of them, they came from Kenya and refugee camps like that, so we have the same common.” An ability to identify with the experiences of that person is essential for successful integration.

Camilla described that initially, her linguistic self-efficacy affected her social self-efficacy, and prevented her from being able to approach native-born Cana- dians. She projected and expected ultimate failure in the encounter; “I think that at first I was shy because I didn’t think they would understand me… I was just sitting and not talking to anyone. I think if I talked to them then they just laugh at me.” Judoney however attributed the problems with integration with native-born Canadians as resulting from cultural expectations and acceptability, in that “people don’t approach others really. Someone else has to introduce you.... And when you’re coming from somewhere else, you have no one to introduce you. So you kind of, immigrants don’t know anyone so they are more willing to go to another.” In addition to differences in cultural expectations and acceptability, he suggests that his difficulties in integrating with native-born Canadians is also a result of the attitude of that individual, again rather than relating to his self-confidence in his own social skills. He suggests that miscommunication is a much more likely possible outcome when communicating with a non-immigrant.

Judoney: For socialization it’s easier to communicate with an immigrant, because they are going through the same thing as me. With native Canadians who 6 QUINN have been exposed to, the other who haven’t, much more difficult. They won’t approach you. If they do approach you, they don’t want to know anything about you. They just want to get what they want and leave.

Norton (1997) confirms Judoney’s observations, stating that native speakers are likely to avoid interacting with non-native speakers; few if any will help the individual negotiate meaning in the target language. Language competencies therefore disrupt the egalitarian assumptions promoted by the notion of natural- istic language and culture learning, in which “immigrants are surrounded by supportive native speakers who interact with non-native speakers” (Cervatiuc, 2009, p. 255). Unfortunately, this ideal is far from the reality experienced by newcomers in institutions of higher education. Sense of belonging When asked to share their sense of their belonging within the institution resulting from all of these factors, participants shared very different responses. In re- sponse to the question of if he felt like he belonged in the class, Judoney stated: “Yeah sure I belong in the class. It’s kinda you and the teacher, and the teacher doesn’t care about anyone, and you feel okay there, but after class where some- thing where everyone is talking or when they come to class, before the class, you feel the atmosphere is not that friendship with everyone. You just stay with your kind of group.” Although he feels uncomfortable with the less structured social situation before and after class, ultimately the impersonal nature of the environment, which was equally impersonal for everyone, resulted in a sense of ease.

Ahlam also commented on the disconnected and impersonal atmosphere that she experienced within the university, but for her it contributed to a decreased sense of belonging. Of the administration, she asserted, “I found they don’t care about your background, they don’t care about your personality, they don’t care about your ability.” While she felt that she way equal in the eyes of administrative staff in that “the university is a business, and I am a client like the others”, this didn’t contribute to a sense of belonging. Furthermore, because of her responsi- bilities at home, Ahlam stated that she had to leave the classroom immediately after class, restricting involvement and inclusion in her peer group, two key components of integrating and belonging in a community.

Camilla felt that she did belong within a community African students on campus, stating, “I can easily understand them. Most of them, they came from Kenya and refugee camps like that, so we have the same common.” Identifica- Negotiating Identity and Access 7 tion with commonalities in their backgrounds led to a sense of belonging. How- ever, this sense of community and belonging did not extend past her network of African friends.

Conclusion:

The experiences that Judoney, Ahlam, and Camilla shared illustrate the challenges that immigrants and refugees encounter in the pursuit of higher education, and the attempts to integrate into the target community. In applying con- structs of linguistic self-efficacy on participants’ perception of their sense of belonging and inclusion in the learning community, I highlighted the challenges that three immigrant and refugee students faced upon integration into postsecondary education. These challenges often resulted from reduced linguistic self- efficacy, which challenged to participants’ social self-efficacy. Although these may not have affected their academic progress and achievement, it affected the choices they made in the institution, the individuals with whom they felt comfortable associating, and the overall sense of belonging that students perceived. All three students remained persistent and resilient in their studies despite the numerous setbacks and challenges that they had experienced, however inclusion and belonging in the learning community had not been achieved, and the quality of their experience had been affected. While these stories present hopeful themes and messages, they also illuminate the personal costs incurred from these challenges and multiple setbacks.

Although the issues explored relate to these three particular participants, based on the degree to which these concerns are addressed in other research, it is clear that the issues are consistent between many immigrant and refugee students. Further research into the identity formation and perceptions of self-efficacy of immigrant and refugee post secondary students in needed to more clearly understand the struggles and challenges faced by these students. Ultimately, if post secondary institutions hope to facilitate the success of all students, then these are issues that they must address. 8 QUINN

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